I'm Burning the Memories
by Broken Twisted Lullabies
Summary: After reading of his husband's affair, Cas decides to who him just how much he screwed up. OR: Dean might've been a hurricane, but Castiel was a wildfire. [Sequel to Say No to This]


**Here's the sequel to** _Say No To This_. **You don't have to have read the first part to understand this, but it may help clear a couple things up. This is based off of the song Burn from the musical Hamilton and any lyrics taken from it do not belong to me, but the talented Lin-Manuel Miranda.**

 **Also, for anyone who has the Supernatural animo app, a lovely person on there made their own version of Castiel's reaction to Dean's affair and you should definitely check it out because it's absolutely amazing!**

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 **D. Win:** _The Charge of Speculation Against Dean Winchester, Trial Lawyer of Roman Enterprises, Fully Refuted_ [link]

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Dean had always been like a hurricane to him, wild and uncontrollable, unable to sit still and unpredictable. He had been like that when Cas first met him, years ago at the gala his father was throwing in celebration for once more being chosen as the US Senator. Dean had entered the room as a stranger, talking with a few others Cas had realized, dressed in a nice black tux. All through the night, Cas had found himself intrigued by this man, who spoke and moved so confidently, despite it easy for Cas to see how a man like him didn't belong in this kind of atmosphere. And when they had made eye contact, Cas felt his heart speed up, something clicking in him that made him want to go and talk to this man, to get to know him better because there was something about this man that made him stand out, different from everyone else at the gala.

So he had approached him, smiling warmly and introducing himself and things only improved from there. They talked long into the night, the man, Dean as he had introduced himself, at one point pulled Cas onto the dance floor and they danced the night away. It was then that Cas had known he had fallen completely and helplessly in love with Dean. he fell in love with his smile, his laugh, and the photographs he'd send him on the side, even the little scraps of writing written just for Cas. Just for him.

Cas had loved Dean so dearly, believed he was the one, and had told Gabriel, his older brother, just that. And Gabriel smiled, happy for his little brother. "But be carefully Cassie," Gabriel had warned him, pulling the younger male aside after one of his dates, right before Cas was going to move in with Dean. "Men like him are ambitious, and they will do whatever it takes to survive and make a name for themselves. I don't want you getting hurt."

But Cas had reassured him all was fine, because for the longest time, he had believed he was in the eye of the hurricane, where everything was calm within the storm. Oh, how he had been wrong. Looking down at the piece of paper in front of him, he read it again. It seemed he hadn't been in the eye of Dean's storm, but rather trapped in the harsh winds like everyone else, ripped apart and left feeling uprooted.

This perfect life he had created with the man he loved, ruined, by the hurricane that was Dean. It didn't make sense, no matter how many times he reread this article Dean had posted online - dubbed the Reynolds Pamphlet - because he had been happy with the two of them, so why hadn't Dean?

 _'I knew you were mine,'_ Cas thought to the paper bitterly. _'You said_ you _were mine.'_ Sadness and hurt creeps in along with the bitterness as he leaves the living room and enters the kitchen, paper still in hand. He hears a buzz from the counter top and glancing over, he notices his screen is lit up with at least a hundred more messages and tweets from Twitter, all focused around the scandal, asking for his thoughts on the thing. Of course Dean hadn't just come clean about the affair quietly; no nothing about the man was small or quiet. Dean was big, and so he made an article online about it and then posted the link on his twitter, sending it out for all to read. And everyone had read it. Even before Cas had. Everyone had known before he even did. And that stung more than ever because this man he had hopelessly fallen in love with had promised him on their wedding day that he'd love Cas and only Cas. It was him and no other that owned his heart.

And all this time Cas had believed this.

 _'I thought you were mine.'_

But Dean wasn't his, he never had been. And it had taken Cas too long to realize that he would never been enough to satisfy his hurricane of a husband, who had taken to finding comfort in a woman behind his back, starting while he had been away on vacation with their brothers. He grits his teeth, clenching his fist and the paper crumples.

And to make matters worse, even when Cas found out, it had been almost three days after the news article had been published. And Dean hadn't come to tell him personally about the affair. Instead, he had just waited for Cas to come to him, sobbing, and a mess. But that wasn't going to be him. He wasn't going to go crawling back to the man, crying and asking why he broke his heart like this.

Cas opens the drawer closest to him, digging through it before pulling out a lighter. Then, he makes his way down the hall, calm and collected; ready to show Dean just how big he fucked up. Along the way, he passes the photographs of them that hang on the walls, all happy smiles that only broke Cas' heart further. The man pulls off the photographs, tugging them from the walls without any care, taking them out of their frames and holding them in a stack.

He then makes his way to Dean's office, opening the door. There's no one there, Dean away at work - and most likely will be for a couple of hours at least - so Cas helps himself to searching the contents of the desk, being orderly and neat. Whatever there is that is about him is gathered up, added to the pile of photographs and he then leaves, leaving behind the papers and remaining pieces of work that belongs to Dean. Cas doesn't bother touching it, he knows how much this means to Dean, how this idea of a legacy and big name was more important to him over the man he loved, over his family.

Once everything is gathered, Cas heads to their room, making his way directly to the connected bathroom, opening the door. He places the pile of photographs and papers on the counter top, placing the lighter beside it before slipping back out into the bedroom, glancing around the room. Disgust fills him as his eyes land on the bed. That had been where they had had sex, where that girl - Cas refused to call her a whore, regardless of how much he hated her for this and how others so easily called her that - had slept curled around Dean. Tearing his eyes away from the bed, Cas then looks over at the bookshelf that sits in the corner, a small beat up thing that held al their scrapbooks filled with photographs of the couple over the years. Making his way to the bookshelf, Cas gathers the scrapbooks in his arms and makes his way back to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

Grabbing everything, Cas collapses to the floor, leaning with his back against the bathtub. There is a buzz again and Cas realizes it's his phone - he hadn't remembered grabbing the thing - most likely alerting him of another message, another news reporter wishing to hear from Castiel Winchester-Novak, curious to know how Cas was reacting to all of this. But rather than a reporter, he finds it's a message from his older brother Gabriel.

 **Gabriel:** _You've married an Icarus, Cassie. He's flown too close to the sun._ _  
_  
He feels his eyes tearing up as he reads the text, not wanting to believe it, but most of him knows Gabriel's right. Gabriel had always been right from the start about Dean. But Cas still wants to try to find something somewhere that proved Gabriel was wrong. That perhaps this horrible nightmare was nothing more than a bad dream, that Dean hadn't shattered his heart into a million pieces. So he unlocks his phone, and ignoring the notifications from the social media apps, he clicks on the message button, opening up the conversation he had with Dean. He scrolls through it, going back up, trying to find where it was that Dean had stopped loving him, when Dean had once loved him. Was it a couple months ago? Weeks ago? Maybe longer.

After all, it was one year. One fucking year that Dean had lied to him, snuck around with another, kissing her lips, sleeping in her bed.

Were the signs there, somewhere in the texts? Had Cas not noticed them sooner, still so blinded by his love for his husband? How many ' _I love you_ 's were lies, meaningless and empty?

His anger grows stronger and Cas, tired of searching the texts, deletes the entire conversation without hesitation. In the blink of an eye, it's all gone. Years of texts and jokes and " _I love you_ "s gone in a matter of seconds. Shutting off his phone, Cas turns next to the photo albums, running a hand gently across the front cover. In these albums they told the story of them, filled from the moment they had first met up until now and part of Cas believes he'll find his proof in here. That somewhere in between these pages he'll find the evidence that Dean loved him and was his, only his. But by now, Cas doesn't care. Earlier, he may have wanted to find it in him to maybe still love Dean, but now, Cas doesn't want Dean back. No, he hopes this man would burn. So that's what he does.

Getting to his feet, Cas grabs the first few photographs and the lighter, flicking it open. The flame dances, orange and bright and hungry and with a glare, Cas puts the flame to the corner of the first photograph, watching it catch and be eaten away by the fire. Once it gets too dangerous to hold, he drops it in the tub and reaches for another. And another. One by one he burns the photographs, then moving on to the love letters and poems Dean had written him.

Every photograph and note he had held so dear lost its fight to the fire, burning along with Cas's love for Dean. He wanted the other man to know how much he had hurt him. "I'm erasing our relationship, destroying every bit of what we once had. You don't deserve my heart and I'm making sure you never get it again," he says aloud to no one. Photographs from the albums come next, ripped out carelessly and lit on fire. "All you'll have is memories of us, of me and what you once had," he spits.

It had been made clear how much Cas meant to him, how he was second best at most. "You care only about your reputation, how the world thinks of you and sees you. You didn't even stop to think how in clearing your name of all those accusations, you ruined ours. You make me feel like a fool, stuck believing you loved and cared about me, when all this time, I wasn't that important to you," he growls at the first photo on the front page of him and Dean. "But you're the fool, not me."

And so the album cover is slammed shut and tossed into the tub, catching fire with what else is in there.

Cas burns picture after picture from the other albums, pictures from their first date, their second date, the backyard barbecue that had been thrown at the Novak household. All of it is destroyed and not once does Cas allow himself to cry, not even shedding one tear for the man that destroyed him, made him once feel so special and now made him feel so broken. The further he got in the books, the more he realized he had been wrong all this time and so he doesn't let any picture survive the wildfire that is his anger. He wasn't going to let Dean had anything to remember him by but a pile of ashes in the tub and the sheer memories of him. After going through the first two albums, Cas got to their wedding one and paused, gazing at the beautifully decorated album. His mother had designed it and the first time seeing it had brought tears to his eyes, but now, only left a sour taste in his mouth and made him feel nauseous. Flipping through the pages, he hoped, that perhaps this could remind him of what they once had, quench his bitter flames but it only fed them the further he got into it. When he gets to the photo of their kiss he quickly rips the photo out, holding it to the lighter and watching as the flame catches.

"I hate you Dean Winchester," he snarls. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"

More pictures add to the pile of ashes in the tub, grey and black flecks against pristine white.

"I hope you burn along with these photographs, hope you see just how much you messed up and how much you lost because guess what. They'll never know how I felt. The world may know of your mistake, they may have read the emails and texts you sent her, know of how you ruined our name, but they will never know how much you broke my heart. They will never know how I reacted to all of this. They'll only have to guess, because I'm burning the memories and burning the photographs and letters that might have redeemed you." _That might've caused me to fall back in love with you once more_ ,he silently adds but he doesn't dare speak the words out loud .

Instead, Cas chuckles emotionlessly; staring down at the empty albums once he's done, left with only one photo in his hand. "I'm watching it burn, Dean. Everything that we once had, is now gone. I hope you're happy." And he places the lighter on the sink, watching the last of the photographs be destroyed by the flames before taking off his wedding ring and staring at it.

Such a small little thing made of metal, and yet it had meant so much to him. Or, it once had. Now, it meant nothing at all, and so he placed it on the counter beside the lighter.

"You were so obsessed with having a perfect legacy, so obsessed with your work so here you go Dean. You can have your work; have your image and your name. But you will never, _ever_ have my heart." And Castiel leaves the bathroom, dialing Gabriel's number. Not once, during all of this does he cry. Dean does not deserve his tears.

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Dean returns home late, stumbling into the house tired. "Cas?" he calls out, searching for his husband. "Honey, where are you?" he asks. "I - I need to talk to you."

He twists his hands, nervous. For the first time, the hurricane of a man is unsure at how to form the right words. He wants to tell Cas the truth, knowing that by now the man must've read the article and wanted to know the exact truth from him. But the house is silent, and he frowns, making his way through the house. "Cas?"

Something's wrong, he can tell and as he walks around the house, he notices things here and there missing, nothing big, but small little things Cas had loved. All gone. Frowning, he continues to search the house and as he does, he begins to realize more and more of Cas' belongings are missing. In fact, nothing that the dark haired male owned was left behind.

"No…" Dean whispered, eyes growing wide with horror. He rushes down the empty hallway to their bedroom, noting the bareness of the walls, all devoid of the photographs of them. When he flings the door open to their room, he finds the sheets still on the bed, - of course Cas wouldn't take those, why would he after Dean had admitted Lisa had slept on multiple occasions in their bed? - but everything else Cas owns is gone. Even the photo albums or so Dean thinks. When he enters the bathroom, he finds Cas hadn't taken them with, instead leaving them strewn on the floor, open and blank, and he finds a pile of ashes in the tub. Dean realizes with horror what the ash is from and swallows back a sob, eyes tearing up at the sight. Everything that they had once had, gone, burned away from Cas' anger, and betrayal.

Cas had successfully erased himself from the narrative of them by destroying every picture - and Dean could assume any letter or poem he had written him as well - leaving nothing left for Dean besides memories. A glint on the sink counter caught his eye and turning his head, he noticed the slim gold band left behind. Cas' wedding ring. It was truly over.

"No. No, no, no!" Dean sobs as he collapsed to the ground in a heap. "I'm so sorry Cas. I'm so sorry," he repeated brokenly as he sobbed, knowing he had made the biggest mistake in his life. He had cared for his work and reputation, the legacy he would leave behind far more than the love of his life, and now, he lost everything.

In the end, Dean had been like a hurricane. But Castiel was a wildfire.

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 **Okay, so I know Cas doesn't break down sobbing like how I normally have most of my characters do when they're pissed, but to me, Cas isn't the angry crier, he's the dry anger type of people. Where you get pissed and wanna yell and punch something. Also, he feels that after Dean broke his heart like this, the man doesn't deserve his tears (Plus, in the actual musical, Eliza never breaks down crying and I really wanted that to be reflected to Cas).**

 **Also, the little snippet thing at the top is meant to be Dean's twitter post with the handle (get it, like for the signature?) but sometimes the at symbol here is wonky and doesn't work. Also the whole "link" is originally a link to the actual Reynolds Pamphlet that I pretended was the article Dean was linking to. (Stupid always screws up my formatting whenever I write stuff)**

 **Let me know what you thought of this and my tumblr's** twisted-pride **if you wanna talk, complain about my stuff, or just yell at me about updating certain things.**

 **-Twist**


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